Q: What is transcreation?
A: Transcreation as a word combines two different words: translation and creation. But the word creation as such is something of a misnomer; transcreation can be more readily understood as a combination of copywriting and translation, amounting to a kind of creative adaptation of a text for a culturally specific target audience that speaks a different language from that of the original.
Q: Why does transcreation exist?
A: As a word, transcreation provides a useful way of labeling a specific kind of creative work between two languages for a culturally specific target audience. As a practice and a service, transcreation provides a useful middle ground between translation and the creation of an entirely new text for a new target audience.
Q: Why do we need this middle ground? Why not just create a new text?
A: While there are instances where creating a new text for a new target audience would be the better alternative, there are many others where a company would prefer to retain the conceptual and creative spirit of the original while reproducing its emotional impact for a new target audience. This kind of creatively balanced reworking of a text for a new target audience, filling a specialized role in a specific context, is the bread and butter of the transcreator.
Q: What’s an example of a something that should be transcreated?
A: An example of an ideal challenge for a transcreator would be a pun. Slogans, jingles, and texts written to convince, entice, or persuade often have puns. In fact, the briefer and punchier the text, the more likely it is to be pun-driven. The challenge of a pun, of course, is that it exists resolutely in the original language as a combination of sound and sense. Like many kinds of poetry, which also conveys meaning by combining sound and sense, the meaning of a pun is often untranslatable.
A transcreation, on the other hand, should still be able to communicate the emotional impact, tone, register, and stylistic flourish of a pun to the new target audience. This could be achieved in a number of ways, including that of creating a different but equivalent pun for the target audience or using a different rhetorical device with the same or similar effects.
Q: Why use transcreation instead of translation?
A: This depends on a number of factors. Whereas translation tends to prioritize preserving the meaning of the original, leading to notions of failure and success bound by that criterion, transcreation tends to prioritize recreating the emotional impact of the original, usually with the purpose of convincing or persuading the target reader. In this sense, the success of a transcreation is more ad hoc, contextually determined by a company’s goals and the parameters of a transcreative brief.
Q: How is a transcreation commissioned?
A: The decision to use a transcreator instead of a translator is best considered in consultation with a professional familiar with both strategies, someone who is capable both as a translator and a copywriter and so can offer advice on the best strategy in a particular context. With that said, if transcreation does happen to be the chosen strategy, one essential practice would be that of making a transcreative brief for the transcreator.
This brief includes both the guidelines for the transcreation and its purpose for the client, including the background for the project, the details and nuances of the transcreation, its intent and target audience, and a set of desired outcomes that contextually define success for the transcreator. Where the translator adheres to the text itself as the ultimate criterion, the transcreator adheres to the brief.
Q: How is a transcreation generally compensated?
A: Transcreation as a service is best compensated by the hour because the amount of time and effort invested by the transcreator are not often equivalent to the length of the text. For example, a landing page with three paragraphs of text and a couple headlines amounting to 200 words could take the transcreator dozens of hours to work on and complete owing to some of the creative challenges already mentioned above.
Q: How is transcreation different from localization?
A: In a comparison of three terms—localization, translation, and transcreation—localization can be understood as the most general. Localizing means adapting something to a specific locale, which encompasses not only its language but its visuals, formats, buttons, numbers, dates, and often the entire configuration of its user interface (in the case of software localization).
Translation is a slightly narrower term by definition: it generally implies the transfer of written language between two cultures or locales. This is the concept most often abused by the general public when it says the word translation while thinking of interpretation, which is the spoken rather than the written transfer of language. The number of HR departments that confuse these concepts in job descriptions, even within the language industry, is always cause for chagrin—but I digress.
Transcreation, as mentioned above, is still narrower and more specific: it refers to the creative combination of copywriting and translation to recreate the emotional impact of a verbal message for a new target audience, usually with the purpose of persuading the target reader to take some kind of action, whether it be buying something, subscribing, getting in touch, or reading further.
Q: How do I know whether I need a transcreation?
A: As mentioned earlier, the decision to use transcreation rather than translation is best considered in consultation with someone who is both a translator and a transcreator and can offer guidance about the best strategy to use in a given context. This means that nothing should be considered in a vacuum; the most important thing is to be open to discussing the parameters of your project and your goals to determine the best possible approach.
Ultimately, a good language professional takes an approach similar to that of a good physician: we have to evaluate the patient before arriving at a thoughtful diagnosis. For those interested in learning more about this specific and often misunderstood expertise, I heartily recommend the book Get Fit for the Future of Transcreation, by Nina Sattler-Hovdar.
